Well, let’s look at it this way… when you use a search engine to find a product or service, how do you feel about the top ten results?

Odds are you see them as being ‘the best’. Why else would they be ranked so highly?

The next question, of course, is how do you feel about the following pages (and pages and pages) of results?

If you rarely look beyond the first four pages, you’re not alone.

Studies show that the majority of people don’t look beyond the first few pages, while the majority of clicks are within the top 10 results. An Optify study showed that the website ranked first received an average click-through rate of 36.4 per cent with the second receiving 12.5 per cent and the third 9.5 per cent. Out of all the thousands of links, the top three alone accounted for nearly 60% of all clicks.

While these percentages will naturally change, it’s clear that if your site isn’t listed in the top 10 to 20, odds are you’re not getting as many online visitors as you could.

This is not to say that a successful website must be in the top ranking results, it simply means your site is easier to find and that it stands out amongst the competition.

Rankings are increasingly seen as being more about ‘reputation’ than a simple list of ‘related’ sites that contain the word you searched for.

TOP TIP: Today, most search engine algorithms actually rank words in context. Simply having the word ‘bread’ listed dozens of times no longer ensures you rank highly; it has to be better integrated into the pages overall content.

People now expect that the sites (brands) at the top of search results to be the leading brands. And that means the top listed sites are the ones that get clicked.

But such perceptions of quality aren’t necessarily true.

And this is where ‘good’ SEO comes in. Each site that ranks highest has used a variety of SEO techniques to help increase rankings, traffic and, hopefully, conversion.

This is the true strength of SEO and why it’s something you cannot ignore.